Bunbury Music Festival – Bassnectar

Lorin Ashton, better known under his stage name Bassnectar, is an American DJ and record producer. Out of San Francisco, Bassnectar is one of electronic dance music’s biggest homegrown acts. Ashton’s DJ sets draw sprawling crowds at festivals like Electric Daisy Carnival, Coachella, and Bonnaroo.

Saturday night headliner, Bassnector, brought droves of festival fans pouring in from final performances on Bunbury’s 3 other stages. The steady stream of fans, weary from a hot day, seemed eager to let loose and dance under the cooler night sky. Glow sticks, LEDs, and neon clothes dotted the lawn as picnic blankets filled the spaces between the stages. Other bands and their grips waited in anticipation on the nearby CVG Stage. As darkness fell over the crowd, a pounding thump of bass broke through the humid night air. Spotlight blanketed the crowd, illuminating them like a prison search light, the screams of the swarm deafened by sense-pulverizing volume of Bassnectar’s massive speakers. An LED parachute deployed among fans, as EDM enthusiasts engaged in revelry with the other fans.

Bassnectar’s 1st song as was a driving remix of Def Tones “My Own Summer” and “Prince”. The melodic vocal of Chino Moreno, fused the “heaviness of the rock/metal sound and gave it even more sub bass & thickness than it had before[i].”

The second song was significantly more upbeat and typical of EDM music with the recognizable 32 beat shifts in mood and direction. Enormous screens blasted pink, red and blue images of pinprick ping-ponging circles intermixed with bounding honeycomb and hexagonal polyhedrons, assaulting your senses in a visual/audial kaleidoscope of music and imagery. While not everyone attended Bunbury with a familiarity with EDM, everyone who took in the sight and sound spectacle of Bassnectar left with an appreciation for a genre of music they may not otherwise have experienced.

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